by HN Wake
She flipped on the bathroom light; it made her blink. Her eardrum cleared and she could hear the most minute noises—the fan in the study, the water heater in the hallway, a cricket on a window ledge.
It hadn’t been a dream. Everything had happened just the way she remembered.
She washed her face, brushed her teeth, and turned off the light. Back in bed, she laid down gently, slowly let her head sink into the pillow, and stared up at the ceiling.
A strand of hair breezed over her cheek. A single strand. It bothered her, feathering back and forth, tickling her skin. It was an unwelcome irritant that refused to leave.
How can just one, single strand of hair be so disturbing?
If Eddy Mudzaffar hadn’t killed the thug, Abdul Izzah, who had? Mudzaffar didn’t know where Josh was. So where was Josh?
Her mind stopped on one, solitary thought.
Is Josh Halloway involved in this in a way I hadn’t imagined?
“You want to go grab something to eat?” Josh Halloway had asked from the bed. He was sitting up against the headboard, the sheet over his lap, his chest bare in all its well-defined glory.
Between them the carpet was an expanse of grey pattern, circles and squares.
She grinned at him from the bathroom door. “Yes. That sounds nice.”
She closed the bathroom door, assessed her messed hair, the linen imprints in her skin, and the swelling around her eyes. She smiled gently at her reflection, whispered, “Yes, Josh Halloway, breakfast with you would be nice.”
“I just ordered us coffee,” he yelled from the other side of the door.
She washed the sleep from her eyes and brushed her teeth with the new toothbrush.
I sure do like this one. Her heart flipped.
She opened the door.
His look was serious and his tone was somber. “Mac, I have a confession to make.”
Her stomach dropped. She walked slowly into the room. She didn’t know what he was going to say. She had absolutely no idea. The anxiety spread across her chest and her heart pounded in her veins in the expectation of pain. “Please tell me you’re not married.”
“I’m not married.”
“Okay?” She was trying desperately to not feel defensive as she stood naked in the morning sun. How could she not have seen something coming? What had she missed? Her mind played out a hundred bleak scenarios: he was moving home, he had AIDS, he had cancer, he didn’t like her. Her heart constricted. “Okay?”
“I made some calls,” he said. “Back home.”
Her mind faltered. What was he saying? She didn’t understand. “Home?” she asked.
“I made some calls into Langley.”
Vise grips seized her stomach. A deep freeze constricted her lungs into brittleness. She whispered, “You’re Agency?”
His face was sad as he slowly nodded.
The revelation blindsided her.
Without hesitation, she turned, picked up her clothes from the armchair, returned to the bathroom, and closed the door. On autopilot, she dressed quickly, robotically.
Her heart was hardening.
She had to escape.
She pulled open the bathroom door.
She had to escape.
He was watching her from the bed.
She picked up her handbag, strode to the door, and walked out.
She pushed back up, set her feet on the floor. This time they were steady, sure-footed. She padded down the hall into the kitchen and set the coffee on. She sat down on the couch crossed legged and opened up her laptop.
Something was tweaking her memory. Something in the master bedroom of Josh’s safe house was bothering her. She pulled out the camera, downloaded the photos to her laptop, and pulled up all the pictures from the master bedroom. As they loaded, they slid across her screen one at a time, the colors beaming into the room. She turned down the screen’s brightness.
Out in the hot, morning sun, the Hong Kong traffic had rushed below as she strode the open-air, elevated walkway between skyscrapers. Small tornadoes of wind whipped up stray newspapers, spun them, and sent them flapping skyward. The air was gritty.
Josh Halloway was Agency and she hadn’t even sniffed it.
The car exhaust burned her nose.
She castigated herself mercilessly. This is what happens when you let someone in. This is the predictable, excruciating outcome of intimacy.
The courier bag slapped against her hip in time to her pace.
How could she not have seen this coming?
Her long, uncompromising strides carried her through Central in minutes.
Her mother’s voice was a malicious whisper, “Keep up, Mac, I don’t have time for your slowness today.”
Her thigh muscles throbbed as she charged up the hill.
She had allowed herself to want him.
Her lungs were heaving.
She should have known better.
Her heart was pumping.
She was less than expected.
She did not look back.
At home, she pulled the shades, stripped down to her underwear, and laid flat on her back on the floor. She wanted the hard, cold wood to match her feelings of despair.
The lit cigarette glowed in the dark as she chain smoked through the night, reliving her humiliation, letting go of the dream.
Morning rays snuck through the gaps in the shades and illuminated the hovering cloud of smoke. She didn’t remember falling asleep. She woke up stiff and sore. Her joints creaked and her hip was bruised from lying motionless so long.
She showered, dressed slowly, and wandered blankly through Central to her desk. It was all a blur.
That night, she pulled one of the cushions off the couch and dropped it on the floor. She would allow herself some small comfort.
On the third day, she woke in bed.
She felt lighter, more herself. She opened the shades and cracked the windows. The fresh air swirled through the pent-up fog.
She stripped the bed, pulled the towels, and left a heap of laundry for the maid. She shaved her legs, added an extra round of hair conditioner, and flossed her teeth. She dressed in a crisp, tan dress.
She felt strong.
She started with the first photo, expanding it to full size. It was the side table. She spread her fingers on her laptop finger pad, zoomed in on the photo of the woman and child. The woman was extremely pretty. She had gorgeous black hair and wide, friendly eyes. She was smiling into the camera with a look of trust and love. Next to her the girl was also gorgeous, with Eurasian features. She had beautiful, perfectly white teeth under a mischievous smile. The young girl had Josh’s eyes. Once she recognized it, it was unmistakable.
She slid the photo off the screen, pulled up the next. It was a shot of the wall and the TV. Perfectly innocuous. Nothing of interest.
The next photo was of the bookshelf. It must be here, she thought.
She zoomed open the photo and slowly focused on the shelves. Military history books were lined up neatly side-by-side like little soldiers, organized by height. A glass bowl overflowed with old coins, their patina turned to black and green with age and oxidation. Some old bullet shell casings floated on top of the coins.
As she moved her finger over the finger pad a cardboard box slid onto the screen. It was clearly an old box. The cardboard was discolored, darker in the corners and around the opening where oiled fingers had opened and closed it long ago. On the cover was a faint print of a flare gun. She remembered shaking it. It had been empty.
In the darkness, she squinted at the image.
She copied the photo from her laptop to her Agency Blackberry then opened an internet search.
Fifteen minutes later, she was looking at an image of a similarly old cardboard box. It was not for a flare gun. This was the disguise box for an FP 45 Liberator, a pistol made by the US during World War II for use by resistance forces in occupied territories. The pistol was a clumsy design intended only for close use by insurgents beh
ind enemy lines. Over 450,000 were distributed by the CIA’s precursor, the Office of Strategic Services (OSS). Many of these were dropped in the Pacific region to be used against the Japanese.
What is Josh doing with an old gun?
A new thought settled around her like a water-logged cloak--heavy, cold and smothering: had Josh Halloway murdered Abdul Izzah?
36
Two weeks earlier in Hong Kong
Josh Halloway, sitting under an umbrella and shaded from the sun’s heat, had been sipping a beer. He watched her approach across the deck of the Four Seasons pool. When she neared the table, he said, “I’m glad you came.”
His scratchy voice made her heart flip, but she retained her composure. “I wasn’t sure I was going to.”
He waved over a waiter
She ordered a Cosmopolitan on ice then appraised him. He was as gorgeous as ever. Despite herself, she wanted him, wanted that return to intimacy and laughter. “I was angry.”
“I’m sure.”
“Now I’m not.”
“That’s good.” He watched her. “There was no real kind way to tell you. It seemed as good a time as any. Maybe I should have waited. Maybe over a meal or something. Maybe revealing it in the morning like that wasn’t the right way.”
She took the drink from the waiter.
He said, “If it’s any consolation, I’m sorry I hurt you.”
“You didn’t hurt me,” she lied.
“Well, I’m sorry for making you angry.”
She sucked the inside if her cheek, ending that line of discussion. “How did you ask around in the Agency? Our identities are supposed to be strictly held, even internally.”
“It’s all in who you know.”
“Who do you know?”
He considered this for a moment, as if he had more than one insider in the system who could access strictly-held information. “My best mole is a guy down in IT. He’s pretty junior.”
“What did you exchange for the information about me?”
“A cut of some Congressional appropriations for Afghanistan.”
The admission stunned her. He had just admitted he paid off an Agency flunky with federal funds dedicated to an ongoing war. Her mouth slacked open.
In response, he shrugged, said “Agency money is just round figures. Black budgets are black budgets.”
His nonchalance was astonishing. She wasn’t sure how to process his indifference about an extraordinary theft. “Jesus.”
“It happens all the time.” He shrugged again.
“How do you access that type of cash?”
“We do a lot in cash economies, my dear. When they send you cash for an op, you skim some off.”
“Jesus,” she said.
“I’m telling you, we all do it.”
“I don’t.”
“You will.”
“Never.” She looked out over the pool, regained her wits. “So how much did you have to pay to find out about me?”
“Two hundred thousand.”
Her jaw tensed.
“Was it a number you expected?” he asked.
She glanced at him. “I don’t have any idea what to expect. Stealing isn’t my kind of thing.”
“Don’t kid yourself, Mac. You and I, we’re of the same tribe.”
“Not a chance.”
“You don’t think so? Let me tell you. We both got into this Agency for the same reasons--our personalities. I’m sure we’re the same Myers Briggs type. We have the traits they look for: determination, grit, independence, and realism. You and I. We’re the same.”
“We are nothing alike.”
“Oh, yeah? Let me ask you something: you ever live with someone?”
This was an odd question. What did that have to do with anything? “As in a boyfriend?”
His laugh was at her, not with her. “Yeah, like a boyfriend.”
“No.”
“Do you feel that you’ve missed something?”
She still wasn’t sure where this line of questioning was going, so she answered truthfully. “No. Not really.”
“See!” He pointed at her. “That’s what I mean. We’re not totally normal. We’re missing something other people have—that need to connect. We. Don’t. Need. To. Connect.”
She crossed her arms. “You don’t know me.”
“Oh, yeah?” He set down his beer and wagged his eyebrows at her challenge. “I know you’re single. I know you’re good or you wouldn’t be assigned to Hong Kong.” He seemed to reconsider this. “Or maybe they owe you a good assignment because you did something noteworthy in some shit hole.” He took a sip of his beer, tipped the bottle toward her. “And you’re hot.”
That sounded a lot like ’sit still, look pretty.’ This conversation was becoming extremely unpleasant.
He continued, “So I know you get hit on a lot. But from what I can tell, you’re good at holding off those advances. You’re up in your head a lot: too much thinking, not enough living. There aren’t many women NOCs. The ones I have met seem slightly bent, bitter almost. You don’t have that. So you use your wits, your brains, to keep your sanity out here in the field. I know you think you’re not like anyone else in the world. We think we’re smarter, quicker, more confident. We think we are better.” He raised his eyebrows. “How am I doing?”
His tone was objective, and he hadn’t said anything she could disagree with. But she wanted him to stop his assessment. She held the stillness of a statue and gave him a blank gaze.
“See! There. That look. You totally blanked me. Like I said, you’re good. Just like me.” He flagged his eyebrows and his grin grew. “Except, I don’t have all that moral shit. I’m in this biz cause I like it, it keeps me jazzed, and I have a blast. But it’s easier for guys. You know what I talk about when I call home? The Packers. I talk sports and weather. I go home regularly for holidays. You know why? Cause folks at home think I work for a big oil company. I tell them I’m dating local girls that don’t cost me much and they shut up fast. They don’t want to know what kind of sleazy shit I get up to out here.” He gave her an intent look. “I bet it’s not easy for you to go home. I bet it’s easier out here, alone in the wild, than it is being home. Out here, you can do what you want, create your own world. Hell, you can create your own persona, your own history. You can be who ever you want to be. You can run away from whatever it is you’re running away from.”
Her stomach knotted. She wanted to sling insults, to tear into his syrupy charm and beautiful face, to make him stop opening her up. She finally glanced away.
“You know what?—don’t answer that. Mac, if I were being honest with you, I’d say I don’t need to know any more about you.”
She glanced back. What was he saying?
He turned serious. “Mac, I need to be real with you. I like my life just fine. I’ve got it all set up, ticking along. I don’t have anything to offer, let alone to someone smart and in the Agency.”
In that instant, as if scales had fallen from her eyes, she realized she no longer wanted a relationship with Josh Halloway. His arrogance, shallowness, and lack of conscience hovered around him like a puce green aura.
With the first sense of internal peace she’d had in weeks, she raised her glass for a toast. “As a matter of fact, I am pretty sure I don’t want anything from you either.”
With a grin, he replied, “Touché. Interesting. You’re better than I thought.”
The second time they had sex it had been athletic. Their bodies slammed hard against each other and the sweat dripped off them. They came simultaneously, both mouths open--caught in silent screams against the back of throats.
They fell apart and rolled on their backs on the enormous Four Seasons bed. They lit cigarettes, savoring them like desserts after a meal, and shared the ashtray between them.
He asked, “Have you got a nest egg?”
“No.”
“The Agency doesn’t hand out golden parachutes. You have to build them yourself.
”
She shook her head. “I don’t have one.”
“You’re behind the eight ball. Nobody ever talked to you about this?”
She shook her head again.
“You are a loner, aren’t you? Listen you won’t be the first or the last to take care of yourself. All you need is somewhere safe to put it. Asia’s not a bad place. Indonesia is good. You can buy property in a local’s name. And then sign a separate legal agreement.”
She shook her head: she hadn’t accept his level of corruption. Yet. “You’ve got one broken moral compass,” she said as she inhaled on her cigarette.
“Yup.” He looked at her with a rare seriousness. “And watch your back. The guys back home aren’t your friends.”
She took a drag from her cigarette, processing his warning, then blew a long stream of smoke into the room. “It’s all so…bleak.”
“You get used to it.”
The next morning, she watched him pack a small carry-on with one suit, two shirts, and a few ties. Even as he stepped into jeans and pulled on a cotton sweater, he looked like a model or an actor. He grinned at her often.
He smiles for himself because he knows how attractive he is, she thought. It was odd to so clearly see his self-absorption.
They rode the elevator to the lobby and stepped into the morning sun. He pulled her in close and gave her a long, firm kiss.
He started to say something, but she shook him off. “It’s perfect just the way it is. Don’t say a word.”
He grinned at her, threw his bag in the backseat, and got in the front of the taxi. He rolled down the window, took her hand, turned it over, and kissed her palm. “Mac Ambrose, you are truly one-of-a-kind, and I am better off for having known you.”
It was the last time she had seen Josh Halloway.
37
Hong Kong
Monday morning, rush hour traffic whipped down Conduit Road. In her sneakers and a pin-striped suit, Mac hustled past the cafes, the supermarkets, suited professionals, and the speeding taxis. Outside a 7-Eleven, workmen banged trays of plastic-wrapped snacks onto slab towers. She barely noticed. She was due to meet Meredith Coldwell in an hour, but she had an errand to run. An important errand.
